Z Poc: Young Brains

by catt dahman

  But, I also learned that when we grow up and are faced with rough situations and have to do things we don’t want to do, it’s best to take a deep breath, meet the situation head on, and take care of it. We can’t second-guess everything we try, so we always have to do the best we can, and then let it go, and move on.

  Outside some of the windows, the creatures watched us, moaning and hammering at the windows; as long as they could hear and see us, they would keep making that infernal noise, alerting the others. When enough of them slammed at the glass, it would break, and they would get inside. A lot were waiting to get in.

  We found big cans of vegetables and soup, fruit, broth, and canned pasta dinners. We loaded bags of the fresh vegetables and fruit from the cafeteria, plus juices and water, and even canned punch and soda.

  Everything went into boxes or bags and onto carts that we wheeled to the main staircase. Upstairs, the others of the group lined the stairway, and we handed the food off to be put in a room.

  I was amazed at the amount of food and drinks we found. I hadn’t liked it when I had lunch, but now, the food sounded wonderful, but we had missed only one meal.

  We sent up plates, napkins, and cutlery. Big knives went up to be weapons. Using a tire iron, some broke into the supply closet and transferred toilet paper, paper towels, some cleaning sprays, trash bags, and other items to those waiting upstairs.

  Mrs. Smith is upstairs; the principal is…yanno… and Mrs. Smith said that Principal Porter was torn up and is out there on the steps.

  This isn’t the nurse’s day to be here, so we should have a clean shot to the nurse’s office, right?” Lance said.

  “We haven’t heard anything from that way.”

  I nodded at Shanna.

  “I saw when it started. Principal Porter…it was horrible,” Shanna

  added.

  “He tried, but the parents were demanding to have their children, and kids were running all over, in and out of the rooms. When he went out to try to help, some of those things grabbed him and started hanging on him and biting him until they pulled him down. I’ll never forget the noises he was making; it was horrible.”

  “Be ready, okay?”

  The survivalists, Curt and Billy, went through first, and Shanna and I went in second. The office was clear. Most everyone stayed outside to relay the supplies and to watch for unwanted visitors.

  Robin came in and tried the phone, slamming it down. “Dead.”

  She tried the Internet and shook her head. “Nope.”

  “Our cells can’t get a signal. They seem backed up or tied up.

  Something,” Shanna added.

  We relayed all the supplies from the nurse’s office upstairs. The last thing we did was to use cafeteria tables and everything else we could find to block the area behind the staircase. If someone were hiding there, we wouldn’t want him coming out that way.

  Essentially, the entire right wing was blocked, as well as the auditorium, and we closed the doors to the cafeteria. Now, only the doors to the school could be reached from here, the staircase,

  and the left wing.

  “Let’s go,” Brandon said. He was becoming the leader; I got the idea from the way he had waded in and finished off the child, made sure Ashlee was gone, led the whole way, and told us what we should do.

  He was one of the last people I thought should lead since he was an egotistical, selfish jerk. He was the type to make fun of people out loud and to show off, and he was not very respectful to adults unless his parents were watching. He thought he was a hot ticket with the girls. In truth, the girls did seem to think he was cute; I wasn’t impressed before or now.

  We trudged up the stairs. I told myself then that I would be aware and do whatever seemed smart and right, but Brandon was not going to be my boss or my leader because he was very likely to get me killed.

  Natalie, who was Ashlee’s best friend, cried bitterly when she was told what had happened. We had a shock as well when we were told that while we were gone, the children and Mr. Tryon had stopped responding as people spoke to them and then began moaning and beating on the door of the classroom.

  I liked Mr. Tryon and was sad to know he had tried to help others and had given his life for nothing. Just a few hours before, we had been listening to him talk about the Spartans and Trojans at war.

  Miss Crater and Mrs. Smith had taken over the food and other supplies, explaining we had to ration because we might be there a long time before help came. Miss Crater added that we would gather in one room with one candle for the night and would have another candle for trips to the restroom when we lost electricity.

  She showed us where she had put first aid supplies and the items for cleaning and said we would have to help with the chores. She had everything organized and kept her eyes on us so she knew we were safe.

  “We’ll set up guards,” Curt said, “and after we eat, we’ll check all the rooms up here and make sure they’re safe.”

  “You love this shit, don’t you?” Jerico asked.

  “We’ve been preparing for years. You should see my house,” Billy said, “but we’re here, so we know what to do.”

  “We’re what ya call experts. Don’t try this at home,” Curt added, and the two laughed.

  “Jerico, language,” Miss Carter wagged a finger with a smirk; she was correcting him but not getting on his case.

  “Sorry, Miss Crater, it’s the stress.” He grinned back winningly. He always got a break from the teachers because he was a star athlete and had a big smile that he used when he was blamed for anything. I thought he was a scammer, but he did have a good attitude with the adults that caused them to favor him.

  I didn’t know how anyone could enjoy this and actually be glad we were going through this, but in a way, Curt and Billy’s attitudes were better than those of Deana and Natalie’s who sat and cried.

  Miss Crater brushed Curt’s feet off the desk and gave him a hard look. Billy and Curt were the types that adults thought would go crazy and attack the school one day, but they were just goof-offs who liked to talk and could now act out their big words.

  They would never have done anything violent to those at the school because at heart, they had always been a little cowardly; now, I wasn’t so sure. They were quickly gaining status; that part scared me a little.

  We ate canned pasta-roni junk with green beans, a slice of bread, some more veggies, or a piece of fruit. “This is our big meal.”

  We’ll have a little meal later if we really are hungry,” Miss Crater said, depressing us. She made sure we drank milk because it would ruin when the electricity failed.

  “Why would it fail?” Mona asked. She was still starving after her meal and offered to help clean up so she could pick through any leftovers and eat them. I saw her doing it, and she glared at me until I looked away.

  “Because that’s what happens in a zombie apocalypse,” Curt said.

  “Stop calling it that. It’s a virus that is making people sick, and everyone is panicking and acting stupid. Soon the police and National Guard will come set everything straight, and we can go home,” Mona said as she gnawed an apple core.

  “Did you miss all that went on? Did you miss the Zs eating the little kids?” Curt asked.

  “You’re a sick person,” Mona said.

  “Hey, shut the fuck up, will ya?” Jerico yelled. “Stop talking about what happened down there. I just ate.”

  “Man, Jer, you are in denial,” Lance laughed. He was one of the few that could snap back at the big football player and not bring down his wrath.

  “Trust me, Mona, if you missed the stuff out there, we saw it up close down stairs. Those things…there’s nothing at all in their eyes.

  They are milky white and dull, and maybe there’s some hunger, but they aren’t the people we ever knew. And it spreads fast. We’ve lost…what five? Six? Just since we came to this room, we have lost that many,” Marshall spoke in his calm, soft voice.

  “Ashlee�
��.” Natalie cried again. “I can’t eat anymore.” She handed her plate to Mona to be cleaned.

  Mona used her fingers to eat what was left. “But the electricity?”

  “The phone is out. Our cells are screwed. The Internet is down. I checked all that. All the communication is gone already,” Robin said.

  She hardly ever talked. Like many victims of sexual abuse, she didn’t want to be pretty anymore and wore baggy shirts and pants, sometimes long sleeves even when the weather was warm. Her hair was shoulder length, and she let it fall on her face mostly.

  I only got to see her pretty baby blue eyes when we were alone and she pulled her bangs back. She was a really cute girl with freckles and rosebud lips, like a pixie doll. If she had cut her hair, put a dash of makeup on, and pulled her bangs back, she would have been stunning.

  As if Robin hadn’t spoken, Brandon gave the same report. “We checked the telephone and Internet, and neither is working, so in other words, we have zero communications available.”

  Nick shook his head, irritated with his brother and the situation.

  “Mierda,” Ruby said.

  “So it stands to reason that we will probably but not positively lose electricity, and we need to get buckets and fill them with water because we may not have working toilets,” Miss Crater told us. “I think Marshall is right.”

  “Meirda,” Ruby said again, and this time we giggled since it fit well.

  “I think it will blow over, and the army or someone will come fix this. It’s not that big of a town,” Mona said.

  “Mrs. Smith blinked a few times. “Oh, no, it’s here, and it seems to have gotten to our town a little fast. We were one of the first places to report it and show it, and we thought it was nothing but a little virus or a bacteria going around, but before I lost the Internet, the doctors were tracking those initial symptoms….”

  “The shit-puke-nosebleed-supposed-coma ones?” Jerico asked.

  “Bleeding from every orifice. Before I lost service, I saw on my phone that people were calling it Red. That’s just disgusting,” Loveta added. “Stick tampons in your coochie and butt and one in each nostril.” She laughed and popped in new gum; several kids, including Jerico and those in the protective group, laughed.

  “Anyway,” Mrs. Smith tried again, “there are many other places in Texas which were reporting Red, along with Louisiana and Arkansas and as far away from here as Maine, Florida, and Arizona. And the reporters said it has already taken over England, Mexico, the Asian countries, and Africa.”

  “Cause they have dirty water, and a hundred people live in ten apartments, and they pee in the street. You ever see pictures from Mexico? They have chickens in their houses, and they pee in buckets,”

  Jerico chuckled, getting laughs from Brandon and Lance.

  “Hijo de se su Madre,” Ruby snapped.

  “You calling me names, Mexi-melt?”

  “Pendejo,” she sneered, “yes, you don’t know about other places.”

  “Not like you stayed there. You came to our country,” Jerico said.

  “I was born here. Pendej.”

  “You little-ninth-grade-snot talking to me that way? I am a star football and baseball player. I was voted most handsome this year, and you wanna call, me, me, who was homecoming king, some bad name?”

  Jerico demanded. He was playing this for laughs from the rest, and several chuckled. He posed and postured as everyone laughed harder.

  “We don’t want to stress out and say things we don’t mean,” Natalie said.

  Ruby tossed off a few sentences in Mexican and then switched to English. “I said I am a peon, a nobody, so what does it matter what I say or call anyone. And I mean what I say. I thought seniors had to take a Spanish class? You didn’t learn me cago en todo lo que se tue homecoming, crown man.”

  About half of us understood and laughed.

  “What did Mexi-melt say?” Jerico asked.

  “Peons and jocks, give it a rest,” Nick growled, “you’re acting like idiots.”

  “About the electricity?” Mona brought it up again.

  “It’ll go off. Get over it,” Curt said, tossing a ball of paper at Mona’s head.

  “What if we reported the initial phase first, but then we went on like normal, and then other places began to report it. Finally, then it would take over across the seas?

  They said the coma victims awakened to bite and start the second phase, and then suddenly the world was in chaos. How come we didn’t get much news about it and no world news?” Bevvon demanded of us, while pacing.

  “We had some news, but it wasn’t about it being here so much,” I said.

  She went on, “And why was our Internet down ninety-nine percent of the time last week? If we were the first to report, why are we the last to know? And finally, why did our victims not come back first?” Bevvon asked.

  “I could hardly get online,” I said.

  “My cell phone hasn’t worked in a week,” Loveta added. “I told my dad, and he said his wasn’t working, either. I think there was a part I missed.”

  I looked at her and wondered if her brain ever worked.

  “My grandma went to the hospital with…well…what they said was Red. She’s still there, but we can’t see her because the doctors don’t want it to spread. They do give us daily reports that she’s doing much better,” Marshall said.

  “Have you spoken to her?” Curt asked.

  Marshall blinked, “Well, no…but….”

  “My neighbor, the wife…she’s in the hospital with it. Her husband hasn’t spoken to her because they said she was sleeping and resting, but they said she wasn’t bleeding or sick anymore, and her fever had gone,” Mike said.

  “Because she woke and is one of them, now,” Curt nodded. “So is your grandma, Marshall. We had Red here first, and we had them wake first, but we kept them in quarantine. I suppose, like always. The infection somehow got out, and it just took one….”

  “Another conspiracy theory?”

  “My cousin and his family...we haven’t spoken to them,” Jerico grumbled.

  Mrs. Smith frowned, “We have a huge amount of students out with it, but we were told it was contained. We thought about closing the school because of so many not being in school.”

  Listening, Scooter chimed in, “But that theory does fit what we’ve seen. They surely kept it all from us unlike the rest of the world.

  I can’t say it isn’t possible that it began here and was covered up.

  But then, I can’t say that it was, either.”

  “Wow, Scooter, that was something we’d hear in politics. You can’t say it is, but you can’t say it isn’t,” Brandon laughed.

  “Cover all the bases,” Jerico said.

  “We need to check the classrooms,” Brandon reminded everyone.

  “Grab a bat, and come along if you want. Let’s see whom we can team up with; one team will remain on guard here; we need three….”

  Nick broke in, “Arisbe, Me, Shanna, Lance, Bevvon, Tom, and Marshall will be Team Two. All you guys okay with working together?”

  They nodded. I nodded, too, liking my group mostly. I thought Tom was a sneaky, pompous ass when the jocks weren’t around.

  “Ruby, Patricia, Carter, Billy, Curt, Brandon, and Brett are Team One. Are all of you happy with your team?”

  Ruby looked longingly at Team Two but shrugged and nodded.

  “Robin, Thomas, Scooter, Jerico, Mike, Loveta, and Mr. Griffin are Team Three and will guard everything while we’re gone, such as the front staircase.”

  Loveta held up her long, manicured nails and showed off her high-wedged heels. “Uh-no,” she smiled and chuckled sweetly.

  Nick looked over everyone. Mona was a big girl and slow, Deana was rocking back and forth and didn’t seem mentally there, and Natalie, who sat next to Loveta, shook her head. They needed Mrs.

  Smith and Miss Crater to watch Bevvon’s sisters. That left one other person whom no one had spoken to this who
le time, Sian.

  She had not watched out the window, hadn’t done a thing but get a plate of food, had eaten it in her corner and returned the plate, and had gone back to the corner where she had been reading.

  After marking her place in the book Alice and Friends that she was reading, Sian stood. It was normal for her not to have conversations with anyone, so she hadn’t bothered; she generally ignored the comments the other students made and suffered silently, escaped into books, and tried to remain invisible. She had almost made it this time.

  Describing Sian was difficult: she was built more like a teenage boy than a girl, and her small, flat breasts looked more like pectorals than boobs. There was no defined waist or curve of hips or butt, and she wore cargo pants and loose polo shirts, which added to the illusion she wasn’t a girl. She walked like a boy, too, and she was super athletic, the best female athlete we had.

  She looked sturdy. Her hair was a medium-brown-nightmare, cut very short, and then spiked up like a boy would wear if he were grossly out-of-date on his hairstyle.

  The strangest part was her face. Once a person saw her full on in the face, it was clear she was a girl. Her eyes were pale green, framed by a mass of thick medium-brown eyelashes, and beautifully shaped but not bushy eyebrows. In addition, she had a perfect nose, bee-stung lips that were perfectly pink with only a touch of color, and her teeth, straight and white. Her skin was an olive tone, but not dark.

  Sian had the prettiest face of any model or actress I had ever seen, but she looked and acted like a boy and stayed more invisible than I did except when someone called her a dyke or worse slang terms.

  I didn’t know or care if she liked boys or girls; didn’t other kids have enough to worry about besides other people and their business?

  Plenty of times I had felt bad for Sian when she was called names, but she only got red-faced and ignored them.

  “Throw me a bat,” she said from across the room.

  Lance didn’t hesitate; he took a bat and tossed it hard and high.